


A Mind Can Swim

by Fervidflowering



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, how on earth am i supposed to tag these two, what on earth is their ship name gonna be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15182684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fervidflowering/pseuds/Fervidflowering
Summary: A mind can swim when seeing a dangerous woman in a position of power.  She still works in her shop.





	1. A Mind Can Swim

A mind can swim when seeing a dangerous woman in a position of power. 

She still works in her shop. Mixes herbs and oils to heal. Mixes them again to hurt. If he went to her now like he did before, would she hesitate, or would she hope it killed him. He wonders as his hand grips her doorknob. 

Her eyes are on him as soon as he opens her door. Bravado swells in his limbs, his face curls into a gentle smile, eyes drinking her in. A year hasn’t changed her and he can’t tell if he’s surprised or disappointed. He feels like he has new skin and a new set of bones. 

“Miss me?” He asks. Because of course he does. And her lips twitch at the question. It’s a warm spark in his chest. 

“No.” The word leaves her lips and they turn into a smile. Her wary gaze loosens. Her shoulders relax. Her hands lower the mortar and pestle she’d been grinding away at. 

“Liar,” he laughs as he walks further into the store. A year’s passed, but her shop’s only grown. Earth tones and light winding together with herbs and tea and oils covering the walls still wrap the customer and owner in a bubble of calm. Books in one corner of the shop. Tilda there behind her counter, leaning on the countertop, beautiful. Her lips are dark red. 

His mind swims as he walks further into her orbit and doesn’t worry about drowning.


	2. Coyote In The Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tilda doesn't know where to go from here.

There is a hunger in her.

Like the coyote in the park digging into the guts of a rabbit, her pride gnaws into her thoughts. And lord, she wishes she could push it all back down again. It’s been like this for a while.

Her fingers press the keys of the keyboard; she sings without thinking. And yet, she can’t stopper her thoughts and store them in a jar on the highest shelf of her store next to a jar of nightshade where she could forget about it for years. The questions, the worries, the insecurities swarm in her stomach and whisper about how she could do things better than Luke Cage can from the roost every time she hears about another person in the hospital.

Johnny doesn’t help.

“‘Im nuh know how tuh run ‘Arlem.” He whispers once, while they’re in bed. With his arm around her and her head on his chest, his voice surrounds her. “‘Im runnin’ amok wit di whole place. ‘Im got nuh history wit it.”

“I don’t want its history, Johnny. I want to go to sleep.”

“Yuh dehsahve betta den dis.” She thinks he kisses her hair cap, but she’s too far gone to really care. Sleep has its arms wrapping around her and she thinks - at least for now - the hunger in her belly is sated with his talk of her deserving more than she got from her mother.

And wasn’t that the crux of it all?

Her mother - a woman she felt an aching sadness over - perpetually hung over her life. She constantly sought some semblance of approval from the woman, but she was never going to get it. Mariah’s greatest shame and she still hungers for some semblance of approval from a dead woman.

The next morning, she decides to feed that coyote in the park and give it a full belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patois was written with some help from a couple different webpages. If you've got tips, let me know! 
> 
> Here’s a transcript of what John says:
> 
> “He knows nothing about how to run Harlem.” ... “He’s running amok with the whole place. He’s got no history with it.”
> 
> “You deserve better than this.”
> 
> Also, I love these two so much. And I loved their characters so much in s2. Tilda in particular. Until, that is, they decided to take the woman who wanted nothing to do with her mom's illegal business and seemingly drastically change her ambitions so that she was upset with not getting the club in her mom's will. :/ Come on, y'all. I can't wait to see her (and hopefully Johnny) in s3 though.

**Author's Note:**

> <3 I really hope we get to see these two come back in Season 3. I know Season 2 just dropped, but come on, is it every Really too soon to be thinking of the next season?


End file.
